Use Scarcity To Get Your Customers Buying Now

From double-booking appointments to Black Friday sales and limited time offers (as in, “This Saturday only”), scarcity—or the perception of it—lights a fire under a consumer like nothing else in the marketing world. It’s the most used tool in the persuasive seller’s toolkit for a reason: It’s incredibly effective and easy to do. After all, persuasion is just the art of convincing someone to believe something, then getting them to act on that belief. For the average consumer, nothing is more powerful than the belief that there’s not enough to go around and they’re going to miss out if they don’t buy now.

Scarcity is not only an extraordinarily powerful sales tool, it’s pretty versatile. You can use scarcity of product (like one car for four buyers) or scarcity of time (as in “One day only—buy two get two free”). More people will rush to buy your product or service when there are only minutes left, as opposed to days or weeks left, if they think they’re going to miss out. If you want to see scarcity in action, just watch HSN’s time and quantity countdowns. Talk about persuasion! Just be careful, since you may end up buying something.

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Use Scarcity To Get Your Customers Buying Now

Mike Michalowicz

Author, Profit First

I am the author of Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

From double-booking appointments to Black Friday sales and limited time offers (as in, “This Saturday only”), scarcity—or the perception of it—lights a fire under a consumer like nothing else in the marketing world. It’s the most used tool in the persuasive seller’s toolkit for a reason: It’s incredibly effective and easy to do. After all, persuasion is just the art of convincing someone to believe something, then getting them to act on that belief. For the average consumer, nothing is more powerful than the belief that there’s not enough to go around and they’re going to miss out if they don’t buy now.

Scarcity is not only an extraordinarily powerful sales tool, it’s pretty versatile. You can use scarcity of product (like one car for four buyers) or scarcity of time (as in “One day only—buy two get two free”). More people will rush to buy your product or service when there are only minutes left, as opposed to days or weeks left, if they think they’re going to miss out. If you want to see scarcity in action, just watch HSN’s time and quantity countdowns. Talk about persuasion! Just be careful, since you may end up buying something.